


my body needs a hero

by subwayfares



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: (light on the hurt heavy on the comfort), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - EMTs, Alternate Universe - Firefighters, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Because of Reasons, Butch/Femme, Canon Disabled Character, Crack, Emergency Medical Technicians, Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Falling In Love, Fingerfucking, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Jargon, Uniform Kink, facesitting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-24 02:16:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13801251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subwayfares/pseuds/subwayfares
Summary: A woman rounded the corner. She was wearing the bottom half of a firefighter's uniform - yellow, not red, with lots of reflective strips and big rubber boots. Suspenders held the pants up over her tank top, and her arms were bare. Chick hadguns."Can I help you, ma'am?" she asked. Her voice was resounding and accented; her hair was shiny black and half-up."Um," Darcy said. "I heard there was a volunteer ambulance program."Darcy wants to find herself; Sif wants a paid firefighting job. They take an EMT class together.





	my body needs a hero

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote most of this in 2014-15, which accounts for a lot of my choices in characters. It's based in part on my own experiences in EMS, so please don't take it as medical advice and sue me. 
> 
> There aren't a lot of trigger warnings needed, but this is a fic about providing emergency medicine in a predominantly-white, male-dominated field, so there is that. A fuller list, with mild spoilers, is included in the end notes.
> 
> Title quote is from David Guetta & Nicki Minaj's "Turn Me On," which was my #1 wildly inappropriate ambulance jam.

It occurred to Darcy as she stood outside the Willowdale Fire Department that she had never been to a fire station before. She wasn't sure where the entrance was. But the doors to the big garage were open, and after a moment she decided to go for it. _Nice one, Lewis. Catburgle your way in._ But she was, technically, supposed to be there. "Hello?" she called. "I'm a little lost."

A woman rounded the corner. She was wearing the bottom half of a firefighter's uniform - yellow, not red, with lots of reflective strips and big rubber boots. Suspenders held the pants up over her tank top, and her arms were bare. Chick had _guns_.

"Can I help you, ma'am?" she asked. Her voice was resounding and accented; her hair was shiny black and half-up.

"Um," Darcy said. "I heard there was a volunteer ambulance program."

The firefighter looked her over, and Darcy felt unprepared. She was wearing slacks and a blouse. She was short and kind of squishy. The concrete floors of the garage were at least 95% dust; already her shoes were scuffed.

"We're always looking for help," the woman decided. "I'll show you where to start."

* * *

The man in charge of the EMS program was named Phil. His office was an eight-by-eight box of drywall sectioned off from the main quarters. The floor was cracked linoleum, there were no windows, and Darcy thought she could pick up a better desk for fifteen bucks on Craigslist. Phil himself was graying and looked exactly like everyone’s image of mediocre government workers.

"Thank you, Sif," he said to the woman who had brought Darcy in, and he gestured at the folding chair in front of his desk.

Darcy sat. "I'm studying political science at Culver," she said. "And I'm interested in municipal services and the role they play in-"

Phil interrupted her. "I'll be happy to find someone you can talk to, Miss-?"

"Lewis," she said. "I was actually hoping I could join the, um. Team? Squad. Your website said anyone over eighteen."

That got his attention. "Right now we can only accept volunteers," he said, rifling through his desk for paperwork, "but if you want to get your EMT, we'll cover the expense." He handed her a three-ring binder and a stack of paper. "Read everything and decide if you want to sign up. I'll be in here when you're done."

* * *

The EMT class lasted the entire semester, Tuesday and Thursday nights and then some weekends. So, there went Thirsty Thursdays. Darcy arrived at the first night's class early and watched the others trickle in. There were less than ten of them, and the others were men, mostly young, all white.

Then the door opened and Sif entered. She smiled and sat next to Darcy. She was wearing heavy work boots, a unisex tee and sweats. She stank of smoke.

"Hi," Darcy said, suddenly nervous. The chances of making a fool of herself in this class - she had literally failed ninth grade biology, partly because of the Leapfrog/Catapult Incident - were pretty high. They skyrocketed when there was a pretty girl sitting next to her. "Aren't you a firefighter already?"

Sif nodded. Her face was open, and her hair was starting to fall into her eyes. "A volunteer," she explained. "I'd like to go paid, but I need to get my card to be competitive."

Darcy wondered if she meant, _as a woman_ , but it seemed the wrong time to ask. And Sif didn't seem like she had a hard time about her gender. She gave off one of the guys vibes in a maybe-gay, maybe-not, _Bend It Like Beckham_ kind of way.

The instructors - she could tell by the uniforms and how much cooler they looked than everyone else - arrived. They were young, a man and a woman. The man walked over to the computer. The woman locked eyes with one of the students, a sandy-haired man perched on the front table.

"Cheer up," she said. "At least we're together." She sounded friendly, but she looked scary put together, and she was literally breathtakingly beautiful. Darcy wondered why no one had told her that all the babes in Willowdale were apparently townies.

The man leaned back, resting on his hands. "It's just humiliating," he said.

The instructor came over and sat next to him, lowered her voice. "You'll recert in no time, Clint. You're the best there is, you just don't test well."

It took the male instructor fifteen minutes to figure out how to get the projection up. Halfway through, the woman stood up at the front of the class and said, "Next time I'll handle the computer."

Clint laughed. A guy about Darcy's age who might have been trying to grow facial hair raised his hand and said, "I'm great with technology, I can do it."

The woman didn't acknowledge him. "I'm Natasha, and my co-instructor is Steve. We're both Paramedics, and today we're going to talk about what it means to be an EMT-Basic."

* * *

Darcy had always hated the first few weeks of class, when nothing really happened, but for the first time, she was completely lost. Most of the other students had some background knowledge - they were already volunteers, or their friends and family were EMTs, or something. Darcy had watched every episode of SVU, and that was, uh, it.

Steve and Natasha skipped the introductions that had proceeded every college class she'd ever taken, but she still got to know everyone quickly. Clint sat with his feet kicked up onto the table in front of him, at least for the first few classes. Wouldn't-It-Be-Nice-If-God-Gave-Me-A-Beard turned out to be Tony. He was also a student at Culver, pre-med, and salivated over Darcy's boobs until Clint told him to shove it.

"Don't," Clint said when Darcy tried to thank him. "This job's hard enough for girls, you’ve got to put the assholes down quick.”

* * *

"So," Steve said, "you get called out to a difficulty breathing, and you pull up on scene. What's the first thing that you do?"

"Take care of your patient before he dies, obviously," Tony said. The class was small enough that Steve and Natasha let them call out answers. Darcy kind of hated it, because it meant that Tony was always interrupting, like inverse Whack-A-Mole.

"There's something you should think of before that," Natasha said. "Darcy?"

"Um." Darcy went through the not-yet-very-clear timeline in her head. Alarm goes off, beep beep jump in the car, lights and sirens, be a hero. What went between those last two? "Check to make sure you're in the right place? And find your patient?"

The instructors smiled, just barely, and Clint tore another page out of his notebook to fold another paper airplane. Sif spoke up. "Scene safety," she said. "And put my gloves on."

"Exactly," Steve said. "We call that 'Body Substance Isolation,' or BSI. I want you to say 'Scene safe, BSI' in your sleep, because if you forget it on the practical, that's a critical fail. Now, let's talk about some ways a scene can be unsafe."

* * *

"Look," Natasha said. She had a look on her face like she'd discovered something very wet and moldy under her pillow. "I don't want any of you to get all macho about this, or try to just be strong and grunt through it. We see all sorts of things, and you can't know what's going to get to you. I went to a Critical Incident Stress Debriefing last month after an accident at the aluminum plant."

Clint and Steve were nodding along. Tony looked skeptical. "Don't you toughen up, though?" he asked. "That's part of why I'm here."

Natasha shrugged. "Some things get easier," she said. "Some things don't."

Steve stepped up. "We see the worst of what people have to deal with every day. If you ever really get numb to that, you should probably find a different job."

* * *

Darcy was astonishingly awful at the Human Body unit. Which worried her, because it was only the fourth class, and she suspected it might be important. She didn't want this to be like the time in high school chemistry when she'd realized around Thanksgiving that she should have paid attention when they'd talked about what "positive" and "negative" charges meant.

"I'll help you study," Sif said. They sat together every class, and after the first one, Sif always came in recently-showered.

"I'm in the dorms," Darcy said reluctantly. On one hand, her roommate was a friend. On the other hand, that meant Pepper was within rights to kill her if she pulled the sock-on-doorknob thing, and within rights to mock her if it turned out Sif wasn't actually into her.

"No matter," Sif said. "I have a place."

Sif did not, in fact, have a place. She had a house, and though it was kind of rundown in a chipped-paint cracked-ceilings no-insulation way, it was also huge, and appeared structurally sound.

"This is really nice," Darcy said, flopping down on the pleather sofa. "It's not just yours, is it?"

Sif shook her head. "I share it with some of the guys."

"Firefighters?"

Sif nodded. "And Thor's brother, when he's not elsewhere."

Darcy looked at her backpack, left sprawled across the doorway to the living room, and sighed. "Am I hopeless?" she asked.

"Just new," Sif said. Darcy believed her. Sif was guileless but not naive. "Do you like it?"

"I don't know." She very much liked Sif, liked the challenge, liked the people she was meeting. But she wasn't sure where it fit into her life. She hadn't even really told any of her friends about it. "It feels like I'm doing something good, I guess. College is all this theory, but nothing ever happens, you know?"

"I've never been."

Darcy felt stupid. She knew a lot of the people down at the station hadn't gone to college, or at least not right off - money, or because for whatever reason they weren't the type guidance counselors singled out for college prep. And she wasn't rich, not like Tony. She and her mom had struggled as much as anyone, and the scholarships had helped. But they had managed it, and she was there now, so she thought the details of how mattered less. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't be," Sif said. "If I can get this, it'll be what I've wanted my whole life."

* * *

"Point to your left midclavicular line," Sif said.

"Is there really a difference between the shock position and the Trendelenburg position?" Darcy asked.

"How many vertebrae are in the coccyx?" Sif asked.

Darcy thought. "Four," she said. "But they're fused. You're trying to trick me!"

Sif's eyes crinkled, and she shrugged. "Maybe."

"Okay," Darcy said. "Touch the part of my left upper extremity that is _distal_ to the midline?"

Sif made a face while she did all of the relevant calculations. Darcy put on her best innocent face. Then Sif took her hand. Very slowly, watching Darcy's face the whole time, she bent and kissed it.

"Um," Darcy said.

"I'm sorry," Sif said immediately, and dropped her hand. "I don't do people, it's why I unload the trucks and they never put me on the register, I-"

"Shush," Darcy said. She scooted closer, cupped Sif's face and kissed her firmly. The lack of hot girls at Culver had not stopped her from getting experience, and anyway, she'd made out with plenty of girls in high school. "You're - don't even be ridiculous. You're like every hot firefighter fantasy it never occurred to me to have, and, um." It occurred to her that she was still talking. "I should probably get over that if I'm going to be at the station a lot, huh?"

"Uh-huh," Sif said. She looked confused, or maybe like she was regretting letting this loser into her house.

"You're great," Darcy assured her. "It's just, that's the wrong hand."

* * *

"Okay," Steve said, "Sif, your turn. What's her pulse?"

They all got to practice taking vitals on each other. Except for Clint, who was permitted to sit there and eat an ice cream cone on the grounds that he had been a working EMT-Basic for almost six years and his veins were so well-defined a toddler could take his pulse from halfway across the room. Darcy, on the other hand, had the muscle tone of the Pillsbury Dough Boy, and a pulse Natasha had described as "weak." She was their difficult case.

After a few false starts, Sif got a reading. "About eighty, eighty-five beats a minute," she said.

"No abouts," Steve said.

"Eighty."

"That's impossible," Tony said. He was sitting on the table watching them intently. "I just did Darcy, and I got sixty-four."

"Maybe you didn't feel the other sixteen because you were so busy bruising my wrist," Darcy murmured.

Sif shrugged. "Women are often excited to have me near."

* * *

"Scene safe, BSI," Darcy said, holding her hands in the air for inspection. She knelt down on the ground beside Clint, who was sprawled on the ground at an angle that resembled either a dead body or a highly adventurous sex position. "Sir, I am an EMT-Basic. May I assist you?"

He gave a protracted groan. "Sure."

"Okay," she said, and closed her eyes. She was a complicated-theories-that-could-only-be-explained-in-thousands-of-pages sort of chick, not really a boring medical mnemonic type. "Now I am going to get a SAMPLE history. Sir, what are your signs and symptoms?"

"I have an arrow through my gut," he said. "Also, I'm going to projectile vomit on your face."

Her eyes snapped open. "No, you - an _arrow_?"

"I'm a master archer."

"It's true," Natasha said, from where she was across the room supervising someone else.

Darcy shook her head. "Okay. I'm on A. Do you have any allergies?"

"Just to arrows and, you know, ragweed."

Okay, she was doing great. Next was M, medical history.

"I've broken a few bones, my wrist is pretty much all metal, and I'm Deaf."

She laughed. "Oh my God, we're just practicing. You don't have to come up with all these crazy - I mean, a deaf master archer?"

His face went very still. "I don't want to make you feel bad," he said, "but-"

"Oh no," she said.

He tapped his index finger to his jawbone, pointing at the hearing aid in his ear. "Did you really not notice?"

Darcy collapsed on the floor beside him, covering her face with her hands and cursing. "I am going to be the worst EMT ever."

Clint chuckled. "Nah. Loki was the worst EMT ever." He didn't elaborate. "Tell you what, give it another go and I'll make sure Nat doesn't find out you called me a liar."

* * *

"We're going to be practicing lifting and moving today," Natasha said. "Steve has volunteered to let you learn on him."

As a unit they gave Steve a once-over. He was very smiley and also probably made of literal marble.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me," Tony said, and Darcy wanted to high five him.

* * *

Darcy had an easier time of things with the start of the Airway unit. It finally felt like what they were doing might help keep people alive.

"So, how do you open the airway?" Steve asked.

"You use the head-tilt, chin-lift maneuver if it's a medical call, and the jaw-thrust maneuver for trauma," Darcy said.

"Very nice," he said.

Tony cocked his head to the side. "Do these maneuvers have real names? You don't need to patronize us."

"Of course they have real names," Natasha assured him.

"The head-tilt, chin-lift maneuver, and the jaw thrust maneuver," Steve said.

"They're very useful," Natasha said. "You have no idea how many times I've used them when Hill wouldn't stop snoring."

Steve looked down, smiling.

* * *

"Now you have to check the physical integrity of the pelvis," Steve said. He stood over the mannequin, which was positioned supine on a stretcher and naked except for a pair of uniform pants. He put one hand on each side of the mannequin's hips and pushed down and in. "Ideally, you don't feel any movement or grating. Check for DCAP-BTLS and priapism."

"Priapism?" Tony said. He sounded concerned. "Why don't I know what that is?"

"It's just the ol' bump in the road," Clint said.

Natasha choked and covered her mouth. "Just because they let us call it that in our class does not mean I am letting you guys get away with it," she said. "If you don't say priapism when you go in front of the proctors, they're going to fail your ass."

"Priapism," Steve said somewhat uncomfortably, "is a genital-"

"You mean we have to make sure the guy doesn't have a hard-on?" Darcy asked. The more worldly people in the class all laughed, but Tony looked as distressed as she felt.

"Priapism can be a symptom of serious spinal or brain injury," Steve said. "You check for it by moving your hand across the front of the pelvis, like so." He placed his hand at the center of the mannequin's waistband and let it glide down to his legs.

Tony said, "Okay, but how do we know I'm not just the patient's type?"

"That's why you don't palpate it," Clint said.

"I'm not being rude, but I'm everybody's type."

Natasha sighed. "Fortunately, that's not your judgment to make as a Basic. Just note whether it's present and pass the patient on."

Darcy pursed her lips. "Um, does that mean," she began with some relief, "that we don't have to, ah, administer treatment?"

Natasha and Steve looked at each other, startled, and then Natasha spoke. "Hell, no. We don't run that kind of operation."

* * *

When Sif and Darcy practiced physical exams together, they did so in Sif's bedroom by silent mutual agreement. It wasn't really a matter of privacy - none of Sif's housemates were ever home - but, well.

"Okay, ma'am," Sif said, "I need to examine your chest and torso."

Technically, Darcy was pretending to be unconscious. But Sif felt that it was generally a good idea to be polite even to people who weren't present. "Fine by me," Darcy said.

"I need to move your shirt out of the way so I can be sure you have sustained no damage."

Darcy laughed. "I knew this was where this was going," she said.

"After that critical fail on the last practice," Sif said, "I'm taking everyone's shirts off."

Darcy considered this. She was on Sif's bed, which was nothing fancy but both bigger and softer than the ones in the dorms, and things were looking good. "Sure," she said, "but you have to take yours off, first."

"What?"

"I want an EMT with integrity," Darcy said straight-faced.

"I don't understand," Sif said. And then quite abruptly she did, because she removed her shirt in one motion, like she was on MTV.

Also like MTV: Sif's freaking abs.

Darcy was past the lesbian developmental stage where she'd said 'holy shit' when a girl took off her shirt in front of her. (In her defense, that had been once, and the girl in question had been captain of the basketball team.) Sif took Darcy's shirt at the hem and pulled it up - gently, to avoid jostling her - to her clavicle.

"Do you always wear such lovely undergarments?" she asked.

Darcy blushed. "Oh, this? I, uh, no, this is nothing." She had maybe dressed up a little. (She was getting into the habit of dressing up a little when she thought they might have time alone.) But this bra was thirty dollars on sale at Victoria's Secret nice - a step up from twenty dollars at Target, but not 'lovely.' But Sif wore a dark gray sports bra that did a better job of containment than display, so maybe she didn't have a sense of these things.

"I should very much like to see 'something,'" Sif said. She put her hands on either side of Darcy's ribcage and pressed against it. "Ribs intact, no flail chest or DCAP-BTLS."

"Um," Darcy said, looking up at Sif and wiggling a little. She'd been told she had a very enticing wiggle. "Do we really need to be doing this right now?"

Sif contemplated her, and then (Darcy couldn't have said how it happened, she was feeling a little lightheaded) Sif's fingers were under the band of her bra. "Perhaps not."

* * *

Her first official ride-along was with Natasha; her second would be with Steve. Natasha had on a big, ugly jacket for the cooler weather. She led Darcy through the station, pointing out things. "This is my favorite part of teaching," she said, and she looked vicious. "I get to indoctrinate you into how we do things here."

"How do you do things?" Darcy asked.

"Precisely and professionally." She threw open the doors to the garage. "First, some terminology. This is the bay. We work in a rig or a bus, not an ambulance. If someone has any medical certification at all, they are not, under any circumstances, an 'ambulance driver.'"

Darcy nodded. "Why not?"

"It's demeaning."

She thought about that while Natasha showed her how to check the oxygen tanks. "So it's demeaning to drive an ambulance, but not a bus? Like, the kind that takes kids to school?"

Natasha shrugged. "I don't feel demeaned very easily," she admitted. "But, yes, that's about right."

* * *

They had a few presumably-normal calls, ate lunch, and then got sent to a structure fire. Their EMT was a quiet, nervous man named Bruce who kept a torn paperback of _Planet of the Apes_ in his bag.

They drove to the fire at a normal speed, no lights and sirens. Darcy had expected her ride-along to look more like 2 Fast 2 Furious: Ambulance (no, wait, sorry, _Bus_ ) Edition. "Is that a bad thing?" she said, ducking her head into the front of the ambulance where Bruce and Natasha were.

"Odds are good that it'll be the most boring call of your life," Bruce assured her.

It didn't look that way when they pulled up. The structure in question was a big yellow house. Darcy couldn't see most of the fire, though it escaped through the front windows and side windows on the top floor, but she could see the distortion in the air as waves of heat came off the sides of the house, and smoke escaped through the seams.

They parked on the side of the road a ways away from the firefighters, and it occurred to Darcy that she had no idea what a safe distance from a fire was. "What do we do?" she said.

"Wait until they're done, mostly," Bruce said.

"We're here in case something goes wrong," Natasha added. "But since those are our guys, we're hoping it doesn't."

Natasha found a few hard hats and helped Darcy put hers on. Bruce got a huge pack of bottled water out of one of the ambulance's endless compartments, and started breaking them out and handing them to Darcy. "Bring these over to the firefighters and offer them some."

"Be pushy if you need to," Natasha said. "Keep an eye on the guys coming out of the house. If they look like they're worn down, they need to drink some water and take a breather. They're required to rest every so often, but they're stupid, we're understaffed, sometimes you need to step in."

"Okay," Darcy said. "How do I know if they're too tired?"

Bruce looked like he was going to offer help, but Natasha shook her head. "You're the EMT," she said. "It's your call."

Eventually the fire died down, Natasha and Bruce making comments all the way about how the firefighters could be doing it better. Bruce went up to the driver's seat to make a few phone calls, one of which, he surreptitiously whispered to Darcy, was definitely going to be for pizza.

"Look," Natasha said, patting the bench in the back of the rig next to her. "Steve says it's bad teaching to tell a student off in front of the whole class. That's why I was looking forward to getting you alone."

"Uh," Darcy said. She immediately regretted ever signing up for this class, attending Culver, and possibly being born. "Yeah, that's bad teaching. What the hell kind of teachers have you had?"

Natasha shrugged. "I was a classically trained dancer. So, you know, the kind that want you to be good."

Darcy sat down.

"Let's talk about this day so far. Why do you think your performance has been less than spectacular?"

She hadn't actually realized that she was underperforming. This was so far the worst job review she'd ever gotten, and they weren't even paying her. "I'm not sure I can do this," she admitted. "It's stressful, and we're not even done yet and I'm exhausted, and who the hell even works in twelve-hour shifts, and I keep screwing everything up."

"Like what?" Natasha said.

"I completely panicked when we had that woman with the difficulty breathing, and I can't handle patients at all, I'm supposed to be interviewing them and providing treatment and we end up just talking, and-"

"Darcy," Natasha interrupted, and Darcy realized she was hyperventilating. "I'm not going to be nice to you because you're young or naive or a woman or because I like you. I'm not good at being nice to people. If you want a mentor, that's what Steve is for, or Clint is an incredible EMT, or Phil is very busy but I'm sure he'd love to nurture you."

"Why did you decide to teach, then?"

Natasha grimaced. "Because the department is my family, and no one else will do it as well as I can." She fiddled with her hands. "Also, I want to have a baby, and even if I pick up extra shifts here and there this job doesn't pay for shit."

"Oh," she said.

"You're doing fine. There is nothing wrong with your skills that time won't fix. You're remembering your assessments as well as anyone else, you're building rapport with your patients, you're going to be fine."

"But I keep freaking out," Darcy said. "And I couldn't hear anything when you asked me to listen for a fetal heartbeat, just her belly grumbling."

"Neither could I," Natasha said. "Getting a fetal heartbeat in the back of an ambulance is touch-and-go, no one would expect it of a Basic. But we serve a small area, and it might be a while before you see another pregnant woman. It was a learning opportunity."

Darcy rolled her shoulders. In her uniform pants, which were terrifyingly expensive, and her uniform boots, even more so, her whole body felt constrained, transformed.

"You need to get through this fear you have," Natasha said. "You can't act like you might mess up at any moment, because then you will. I am a _very_ good Medic. There's nothing you can do that I can't fix."

"I could turn out to be a serial killer," Darcy pointed out.

Natasha laughed. "Please," she said. "Liven up my day."

* * *

"Today is our introduction to pharmacology," Steve said. "We're going to cover the medications that you're going to be able to administer as an EMT-Basic, and the responsibilities that you need to be aware of."

"EMTs can't give any interesting drugs," Tony said, shaking his head. "There's not much to be responsible for."

Steve regarded him evenly. "On that note: nitroglycerin."

* * *

One of the advantages to such a small class size was that they could break into very tiny groups to practice their skills. They all got more practice, and Darcy didn't have to humiliate herself in front of the girl she was sort of making out with on the regular.

Unfortunately, one of the disadvantages was that she had been trying to figure out how to use this goddamn bag-valve mask for twenty minutes and she still hadn't achieved sufficient chest rise. The mechanics of it were pretty simple. She had to put the mask over the mannequin's mouth and nose with one hand, then squeeze the attached bag slowly and evenly to inflate the mannequin's lungs. But no matter how she adjusted the mask, nothing happened. The mannequin was probably dead by now.

A table away, Steve and a man she didn't recognize were talking. She thought their conversation had something to do with their dinner plans, the results for some blood work that Steve was expecting back, an interview (though for a job or a newspaper she wasn't sure, or who was the subject) and a very naughty kitty. But she was trying not to eavesdrop.

Perhaps if she'd been trying harder she would have managed to work the BVM. Or she would have noticed when the strange man came up next to her. "Having trouble?" he asked.

"Kind of," she admitted, and looked up at him. He was taller than she was (not hard), with old-fashioned good looks she might have described as rakish if she weren't totally she hoped taken. He was dressed like a normal person, in a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up just past the elbow. One of his arms was a prosthetic with a large metal hook at the end.

"Show me what you're doing," he said.

She did. "Are you an EMT?"

"Was," he said. "And a soldier. You're not getting a good seal."

She sighed. "I was doing fine when we were practicing in pairs, I don't see why this is so hard."

"You were probably using two hands before, right?" Darcy nodded. "That makes it easier, especially when you've got such small hands. But it's not impossible. Try this." He fit the curve of his hand, between pointer finger and thumb, over the nose part of the mask, and then placed the mask over the mannequin's face. "Don't be afraid to hold it down pretty hard, you're going to have to blunt force it a little. It's going to be harder on real people. They're wet and sticky half the time, and they're never shaped as nice as the dummies."

"Thanks for the encouragement," she said, and he winked at her.

"Squeeze it for me?" he asked. "I don't have great pressure control on this thing."

She slipped her hand over the bag and squeezed. Slowly, the mannequin's chest rose and fell.

"See?" the man said. "Technique. Now you show me."

* * *

"You will never do anything more rewarding than helping a new life into the world," Steve said. He was kind of choked up.

They were on the Obstetrics/Gynecology unit, which was horribly awkward. For one thing, it was almost entirely centered on childbirth, and whatever lesson plan Steve was using was written like vaginas had been discovered in 1998. For another thing, Steve kept telling them not to, under any circumstances, "pack the vagina," though Darcy wasn't sure what that meant, why anyone thought she might want to, or why he had to phrase it like that. Darcy felt a little bit singled out - though she surely wasn’t the only one in the room with a vagina, the others had no sense of shame.

"Don't tell them that," Natasha said. "Guys, if you keep going in this wacky and wonderful field of ours, eventually they'll let you intubate people. _That's_ rewarding."

* * *

Their patient was a very old, very large man who thought he might have fallen. The rug burn from mid-thigh to his ribs certainly agreed. They tried three times to lift him before Steve called it off.

"I'm sorry," Darcy said, "I carry textbooks everywhere but not, you know, people."

"Don't worry," Steve told her. "There are physical requirements for being an EMT, but there's no reason you can't get there. And for now, we can call in a lift assist."

"That's good, right?" she said. "Someone will come and help us?"

They had to wait a while. Everyone learned the fun parts of town quickly, so they had to tone out twice to get anyone to come to Strawberry Lane. Finally a pair of firefighters arrived on the scene - Sif, and one of the most beautiful men Darcy had ever seen. He was introduced as Thor, and while Darcy carried out the LIFEPAK 15 and the jump bag behind them, she kind of hated him.

With the patient and all of the assorted gear in the back of the rig, Darcy and Sif stood outside together and didn't quite make eye contact. Darcy kicked at the dying grass.

"Are you free tonight?" Sif asked.

"Uh, yeah," Darcy said. "I get off at ten, and then I was gonna walk home."

* * *

They pulled back into the station at almost midnight, the back of the rig a wreck, blood and dirt and wrappers everywhere. Steve got out of the passenger side and opened the side door, looked at Darcy, who was still sitting in the captain's chair. "You all right?" he said.

Darcy nodded. "Yeah," she said, and unbuckled her seatbelt. "I think. Um, Sif was supposed to pick me up, I don't want her to have to wait more."

"I can't just let you go," he said. "We're not done yet."

Oh. She had kind of hoped.

He offered her a hand, and she hopped out of the rig. "But if you need to go to the bathroom before we clean up, that's fine."

They picked the trash out of every corner, took the stretcher out of the rig and hosed down the floor. Steve handed Darcy a tube of disinfectant wipes. Every surface came up rust-colored. Their EMT offered to be the one to hose down the outside of the rig, but he still got off before they did, it took so long to write out their report - and Steve insisted on walking Darcy through so much of it.

Sif was napping on the big worn couch in the living room when Darcy went looking for her. "I can take you right home," she said. "I was listening to the radio, I know you're probably exhausted."

"No," Darcy said, "I was looking forward to seeing you."

They drove to Sif's in silence, and when they arrived, some of the firefighters who had been on the scene for Darcy's last call were there. They smiled, half-drunk, and clapped Darcy on the back. Sif shuffled her off to bed. Darcy felt sore - she was sure she'd be covered in bruises in the morning - and tired, and like she wanted to go take a long walk in the cold somewhere she'd never been, and confused. She peeled off her boots and her uniform pants and her shirt and bra, and sat on Sif's bed with her arms crossed. Sif crawled over to her, wearing only a shirt and panties, and sat next to her. She took Darcy's ponytail out, rubbed Darcy's scalp, settled Darcy's hair loosely over her bare shoulders.

"What can I get you?" Sif asked. "I've got my own shower apart from the boys. The water pressure isn't great, but it gets pretty hot."

Darcy wondered if Sif was trying to say that she stank, but decided to take the offer at face value. "I think I-" She changed her mind. She wanted a shower. It would make her feel more like a real human, less like a thing that could stand at the scene of a car wreck and listen to people scream and not just start crying herself. But she thought maybe she needed to stay away from real actual person status until her heart stopped beating so fast. She liked Sif, she didn't want to break down sobbing in her bathroom. "I think I just want to stay here a while." She leaned into Sif, who was so much taller that Darcy's head tucked neatly under Sif's chin.

"It gets easier if you remember that you're helping people," Sif said, and put her arms around Darcy's waist.

"It was so weird," Darcy said. "I kept thinking someone should call 911, but there we are-"

"And you were wonderful," Sif promised.

They lay down on top of the duvet, Darcy's head buried against Sif's chest and Sif holding her. Sif smelled inexplicably of Old Spice, and it was hard not to think inappropriate things about her hands.

”It’s normal to feel different, after a call like that,” Sif said, like she knew. Like she’d done it before. “It’s the adrenaline. It doesn’t mean anything about you. And I’m right here.”

”Even if I-” Darcy said, not sure what she was trying to articulate.

”Yes.”

She pressed up against Sif with more purpose, tangling her fingers in Sif's oversized t-shirt and kissing whatever was available. Sif's jaw, her chin, her lips. Sif was so sculpted, with such clean lines that she seemed impossible. No abrasions, no crepitus, ribs and pelvis intact.

For a moment Darcy remembered that she was topless, and that Sif wasn’t, and she almost felt shy. Then Sif kissed her so earnestly that there was no room left to question, and she stopped thinking so hard.

Sif was the only thing in the room that made sense: her shirt was soft against Darcy’s skin, and she held Darcy’s hair back so that she could kiss Darcy’s neck, and when Darcy pressed against her and bit at her lips, she just moaned and softened and she was perfect.

”I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Darcy said, because she lived her life like she might have to write a blog post about it, “I’m upset, I’m taking advantage.”

”Hush,” Sif said, and the way she kissed Darcy’s widow’s peak made it an order. “You’re lovely.”

She nudged her knee between Darcy’s thighs, and Darcy wanted so badly to be close to her that she twined their legs together. Sif grabbed her ass, and Darcy had only a moment to think _Oh, right, I’ve got a damn fine-_ before Sif held her close and tight, Sif’s leg pressing against Darcy’s clit, and Darcy whimpered at how sharp and wonderful it felt. She was wet already, and the only thing that was embarrassing about it was that neither of them were at all surprised.

Sif trailed her fingertips across Darcy’s breasts, around her nipples - and that was old hat, the way goosebumps followed her touch, they’d done this before, but new was the serious look in Sif’s eyes and the smirk when Darcy’s hips bucked against her thighs.

Sif’s hands slid back down to the waistband of Darcy’s panties, and up again, and it wasn’t until the third time she _still hadn’t done anything_ that Darcy realized she was just saying “please” over and over again. She should have worn nicer underwear this time, ridealong be damned.

Sif’s hand slid over the curve of Darcy’s underwear, Darcy spreading her legs wildly to allow her access, her weight so soft that Darcy could hardly believe she’d seen Sif carry grown men over her shoulder.

”Are you fucking kidding me?” Darcy said.

"Okay," Sif said. Her pupils were big even with the bedside lamp on, and Darcy thought she looked mischievous. "What do you want, Miss Lewis?"

Darcy contemplated it for about a quarter of a second, then hooked her thumbs into the waistband of Sif's underwear. "Get on my face already."

Sif pushed herself up on her knees, not gracefully but effectively, and bit her lip in thought. Darcy wondered if that had been too forward. "Should I take these off?" Sif asked, a hand on her panties.

Darcy grinned, inexplicably thrilled to have been asked. "Yeah, at least," she said. "I'm not feeling patient tonight."

Sif wiggled out of her undies, thankfully more expedient when her own orgasm was on the line, (could have called that one) and straddled Darcy’s waist. After a moment, she took her shirt off, too. Darcy could see, in her brief uncertainty, what she must have been like as a teenager - practical, functional, never quite thinking of herself as a Girl in the same way that Darcy always had. It didn’t seem to occur to her that the first way anyone might want to see her was “topless.”

It was awkward, not quite the way that it was awkward to get a man on a backboard - the dark, the sense of having to coordinate with Sif’s body like it was her own, the urgency. The gnawing awareness of her exhaustion. Sif climbed up, one knee on either side of Darcy’s head, and Darcy held onto her hips and pulled her close until their bodies aligned.

Darcy was, like, totally cool, you know? She knew what she was doing here, which was why she wasn’t even a little nervous. She had to tilt her chin up to reach Sif, feeling helpless and desperate, and then her lips made contact with Sif’s clit and Sif bucked. Her thighs, soft skin and steely muscle, clenched around Darcy’s head as Darcy licked up into her. Sif reached down and put her hands over Darcy’s, both of them holding onto her hips for leverage, and Darcy thought _God, this might be the gayest thing I’ve ever done_.

She gave herself up to her body, shaking under Sif, felt herself stripped down to something simpler than human, something that didn't need to do anything but feel good. Sif was stronger even than she could have guessed, and when she got close, they squeezed each other's hands so tight that Darcy could feel her bones creak, could hear them both forget to breathe.

For a second, like the moment before a tree crashes to the ground, Sif was completely still above her. Then she placed her hands on either side of Darcy's head and dismounted, flopped beside her.

She cuddled up close, but it still felt to Darcy like it was too far away. Like if she wasn't careful, the worn, sick-dizzy feeling might creep back in to fill the emptiness left in her.

"No, wait, c'mere," she said, and tugged at Sif's arms. "I want you on top of me all night."

Sif huffed a laugh, but maybe she got how Darcy felt, too, because she rolled on top of her. She was powerful and glorious, wearing a big goofy grin that was a little too real to be sexy. Darcy was so gay for her. Sif brushed little kisses to her forehead, her cheek, didn't seem to care that she was sticky with sweat. Didn't seem to think she was any less desirable for it.

Darcy could hear the men laughing downstairs, telling the kinds of stories that only other drunks would believe. Sif kissed her jawbone, nibbled at the soft skin of her throat, and Darcy arched against her. She closed her eyes. Her breath had gone shallow and ragged. How many respirations a minute? Six? Twenty? Her sense of time was fuzzy. Vaguely she remembered that she'd left her watch in her uniform pants.

A callused thumb slipped over her nipple, and Darcy shot back to herself. Sif was watching her, but she didn't seem angry or worried. "You're off duty now," she said. "You're right here with me."

It was what she needed to hear. How did Sif know? She ran her fingernails down Sif's back, the muscles firm and defined. Sif slid down her body, kissing her breasts like she'd stand in line for two hours to see them, and Darcy stayed with her. She couldn't help feeling grounded with Sif on top of her, like all the nervous energy had somewhere to go.

Sif held herself up with one hand, dipped her fingers into the hollow of Darcy's hip bone. Darcy squeezed her thighs together, tried to get any kind of friction. Sif laughed.

"God," Darcy said. "God, you fuck me up in all the right ways."

"Shh." But her lips were curled into a smile, smug in that way Darcy recognized, now, all firefighters had. Like she'd forgotten how to be afraid of any normal challenge. Like she was confident in the strength of her hands, which had torn open burning buildings and carried innocent people to safety. Like she was always happy to give a lady a hand, or help a kitten down from a tree.

Darcy didn't have time to laugh at her own joke. Sif hooked her fingers into Darcy's waistband and pulled her underwear almost to her knees. Darcy literally couldn't snark because she was too busy praying.

Sif climbed off her, crawling on hands and knees to the bedside table.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" If she hadn't been so tired, Darcy would have sat up to protest this incredible act of cruelty.

Sif turned back to her, a bottle of lube in her hand. Darcy was almost embarrassed.

"Is this okay?" Sif asked.

Darcy's face felt hot, like she'd been sunburned but was too busy having fun to feel it. She spread her legs as wide as she could with her underwear half-on, realized that she didn't really want to take it off. (In the field, she remembered her instructors saying, it would never be as easy to work as it was in the classroom. You'll have to contend with different circumstances: wet skin, tight, enclosed spaces, darkness, exhaustion.)

Sif leaned down to kiss her, and Darcy pulled her back close, letting herself be anchored by her strong, beautiful firefighter maybe-girlfriend. Sif opened the lube with a soft, plastic _snap_ , and Darcy jerked a little, startled. She felt everything so strongly, she felt so raw and new.

Sif slid her fingers between Darcy's legs, and it was so much (cold, soft, silken) and so not enough that she broke, biting down on Sif's lower lip. Sif laughed and moaned and found her bearings, her fingertips circling over Darcy's clit and down to her entrance. Darcy's breath hitched, her hips bucked. If she hadn't been held too securely to move, she would have fucked herself on Sif's fingers.

She whined, and Sif kissed her like she was precious, thumb pressed so hard against her clit that it was almost what she needed. Her fingers dipped inside her, and Darcy was trying to remember the words to beg when Sif said, "You want this?"

"Yes," she said, shuddering, and, "slowly."

Sif fucked her with a restraint and confidence Darcy never could have found within herself. Keening and leaning into Sif's hands, it was all she could manage not to demand more, harder, to let Sif bring her there. When she came, it was a relief. She was trembling and covered in goosebumps, and she felt real again. They stank like sex, not trauma, and it was good.

Darcy cuddled up in Sif's arms, feeling their chests rise out of time to each other.

"You," Sif said, "are an amazing woman."

Darcy looked up at her, everything finally settling down, her eyelids heavy. "You," she waggled finger guns at Sif, "are sexy as balls."

* * *

"Um," Sif said, "I actually forgot my watch."

Clint wolf-whistled, and Darcy frowned, confused as to why he was so excited. "Natasha!" he called. "Did you hear that? Sif forgot a watch."

"I have my cell phone," Sif complained. "Can't I keep time with that?"

"Not on your exam, you won't be able to," Natasha said, walking over. "And if I find out you're pulling out your phone on patients, I'll have you flogged." It didn't seem relevant to anyone that Sif was only doing this so she could be a firefighter; Steve and Natasha acted like if they were enthusiastic enough about her medical career, she might be swayed.

"I'm sorry," Sif said. "I'll remember it next time."

"Until then, you can borrow mine," Natasha said. She pulled a watch out of one of her pants pockets. Natasha had pockets everywhere, she was made of pockets, she was like an EMT-marsupial hybrid genetically spliced by the government for some military project.

Darcy was just babbling because the watch was so. So.

Its straps were velveteen, and had a lime green slash hot pink leopard print pattern. There were feathered protrusions around the face of the watch. Set behind the hands were a series of grotesque Pokemon knock-offs. For some reason, Pikachu was stylized as a panda.

"Where the hell did you get that?" Tony asked. He had come over to look.

"A gas station in Delaware," she said.

Clint grinned. "She's very cosmopolitan."

* * *

They'd already handed in the homework for this class, so the subject couldn't have been a surprise. Still, when the Powerpoint projection showed up on the wall, a hideous yellow-and-blue background with the text "Lesson 6-1: Infants and Children," she could feel Tony and Clint get quiet. Clint leaned back into the chair, arms crossed. Tony leaned forward, elbows on the table, hands covering his mouth.

"Emergencies involving children are some of the hardest we deal with as responders," Steve said quietly. Darcy thought, _oh, great, it gets harder_.

* * *

Steve let them take their break as soon as they were done going over pictures, which was kind of him? She guessed. He had brought chocolate chip cookies to make it up to them, and because it was so close to the holiday. It seemed kind of inappropriate. She took three.

"So," he said, "what are you guys planning for Thanksgiving?"

Darcy very carefully turned to her hands. For the most part, she wasn't.

Clint spoke in a tone of voice that suggested a shrug. "You know me."

Sif was in the bathroom. Darcy was sure she had a family or, failing that, a troupe of men who loved her like a sister. There was a moment of silence before Tony said, "Oh, you know, lots of things, everything, I'm probably going to take advantage of all the sad lonely people to get laid, and then-"

"That's really more than I needed to hear," Natasha assured him. "In the interest of our sexual harassment policy."

He stopped. "Anyway the point is I'm really looking forward to it."

Steve frowned. "Darcy?"

"I, uh." She made a face because Darcy, she wasn't that cute and she was only medium smart, but she could bluff her way through freakin anything. Except this. "I'm not sure yet, my Mom's is a little far for me to make it this year."

That didn't seem to comfort Steve. "And you kids are in college?"

Tony bristled at that. Darcy shook her head. "I mean, yeah," she said, "but I'm a sophomore, I'm all right."

Steve glanced over at Natasha and inclined his head. She scoffed, but when she turned to the class she looked almost encouraging. "Traditionally, we all have a party here on holidays," she said. "We can't just give everyone the day off, so the rest of us come keep the crew company. It's pretty much whenever you want."

"But we're planning on eating about 4:30, unless something goes horribly wrong."

Natasha chuckled. "Anyway, you're all welcome." It wasn't something Darcy would have expected to hear from her mouth, but she seemed to take a certain satisfaction out of saying it. "You'll get to see what we're like in our off-hours."

* * *

The first thing Darcy learned about Thanksgiving at the station was: alcohol was not allowed on the premises.

"If Fury catches you with booze," Clint said, an implausibly muscled arm around her shoulders, "he'll get a kick out of making an example of you."

"Dry party," she said. "Got it."

He laughed. "Nah. If you go out back, Thor's got some stuff in the bed of his pick-up. You're fine as long as you don't bring it in. Want some hot chocolate?"

"Uh, sure."

He handed her a thermos. Darcy was woman enough, barely, not to sputter when it burned in more than one way. She took another sip, a longer one this time, and as she handed the thermos back Clint winked at her. "You met Fury yet?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"I should warn you, then," he said. She got the sense that he was laughing at her. "Bucky and I are pretty friendly, but Fury doesn't like it too much when people ask about the eye."

She only had to wonder what he meant for a little while longer. She walked through the kitchen, where she got volunteered into helping with approximately everything, despite there seeming to be more than enough chefs in one place. When she managed to slip into the back room ("I'll be right back, promise, I am definitely telling the truth about my willingness to mix the spinach dip," she told Steve,) she found a stern group seated around a table.

Natasha looked up and raised an eyebrow. For a moment, Darcy thought she was going to be asked to leave. Then Natasha said, "Happy Thanksgiving. This is my student, Darcy Lewis."

They chimed their hellos, and Natasha gave introductions. "Dr. Jane Foster, our medical director and EMS-1 for the county." The doctor raised a few fingers in Darcy's direction. "Phil Coulson handles the EMS program here."

"We've met," Phil said. "Darcy."

Natasha nodded and turned to the next person around the table. He had a fucking eyepatch, and Darcy wasn't at all surprised when Natasha said, "Fire Chief Nick Fury."

"Sir," Darcy said, and he gave her a friendly enough nod.

"And my wife," Natasha said, nodding at the cop who sat next to her, "Officer Maria Hill."

* * *

Steve cried the day of their last practice session. Natasha seemed tired but content, a woman who could see the end and looked forward to it.

”I couldn’t be prouder of you,” Steve said. “You’re all wonderful students, and you’ve grown so much, and there’s not a one of you I wouldn’t be honored to have in my ambulance. I know you can do this.”

”You’ll do,” Natasha said, and Darcy felt surprisingly proud of herself. “And if I hear from anyone that you’re making me look bad, I’ll come for you.”

* * *

It was freezing when they were released from their practical, but Darcy was the only one wearing short sleeves, and she was half everybody else’s size, and they were all just so relieved to be done that when Sif mentioned the fire pit in her backyard it seemed like a good idea.

Tony tried to build up the fire using Very Advanced Engineering to achieve, as he put it, “Maximal height and propulsion.” Darcy thought they needed propulsion like a cat needs an escalator - probably, but you don’t give into the goddamn cat unless you’re some sort of especially deranged catblogger - but never got to test her theory because, as it turned out, Tony had never set an on-purpose fire before.

Sif tossed together a few old sticks and pieces of wood and made a three-foot-tall wall of flame, and Christ, Darcy was so hot for her.

It had never occurred to her that she would want to get serious, at least not before she was old enough that she could be the wacky indie heroine in a self-aware indie romantic comedy. And if it had occurred to her mom that she was going to settle down (it must have, it must have) surely she’d have expected it to be with someone-

Darcy tripped over the word ‘better’ and stopped her thoughts there, downing her beer, getting another one and losing herself in the fire.

Different. Femme, less approachable in some ways and more in others, nurturing. A little less rust belt. Her mother was secretly hoping, in other words, that she would marry Pepper Potts.

”Does it ever scare you,” Darcy asked, leaning into the strength of Sif’s ribs, head resting against the collar of her job shirt, “knowing that the people you call when you get in trouble are just kids like us, fucking around getting drunk?” She was cold and her legs were stiff from standing, and somehow this seemed important. On the other side of the fire the men were telling raunchy jokes.

”No,” Sif said, as Darcy had known she would. “Because it’s us, isn’t it? And we get up and we go out and we do it.”

**Author's Note:**

> More detailed trigger warnings: 
> 
> \- There are mentions of sexual harassment, which are dealt with quickly. 
> 
> \- Childhood abuse is implied in characters for whom it is canon. 
> 
> \- Darcy's a dumbass about disability issues, and is called out for it quickly and thoroughly.
> 
> \- Lots of brief, casual mentions of racism, sexism, and homophobia. 
> 
> \- Maria Hill is a cop and this is never discussed on a political level. On the other hand, we've all agreed to suspend disbelief about the political implications of SHIELD, so.
> 
> \- EMS is really hard and traumatic for everyone who works in it. I don't especially show real-life patient care in this fic, but I do discuss it extensively, and all of the characters are responding to varying professional traumas.
> 
> \- For Darcy this culminates in feeling really upset and unsteady after a bad call. She responds to this by having sex with Sif. The sex is consensual with check-ins all the way through, but there is a part where Darcy fades out and has to be brought back to herself. This happens in the paragraph starting with "Darcy could hear the men laughing downstairs," and is addressed immediately.


End file.
